Canto Della Terra
by Ashura
Summary: Amid the chaos of war, it is the nature of people to search for hope, to seek out another person who understands....


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CANTO DELLA TERRA

by Ashura

DEDICATION: This is for D, Jay and baby_pen. You are all goddesses--thank you for the most wonderful present I can even /think/ of getting! (Well, except naked Duo, of course, but... *grin*)

NOTES: This is a collage fic--several different scenes that happen at different, unspecified times. Don't hurt your brain trying to figure out when everybody would have been in these places at the same time. They don't have to be.

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Si lo soYes I know  
Amroe che io e temy love, that you and me  
forse stiamo insiemeare together briefly  
solo qualche instantefor just a few moments   
zittie stiamoin silence

The cargo bay was cold, and cramped, and smelled like something had not only died there, but risen again and scuttled off to hide in a corner in the midst of embalming. It didn't matter. Two boys wrapped each other in a fervent embrace, kissing away wounds of the body and drowning those of the spirit in the desperate twining of their bodies. Heero's hungry kisses left bruises on Duo's already marred skin, and his lover's long hair twined around them in tangles of matted chestnut. There were no words--speech would only cheapen the depth of their understanding as two lost souls found fleeting refuge in their stolen moment.

Through the porthole high above their heads, the stygian velvet darkness of space filled infinity, expanding, breathing, balancing worlds in frail folds. Stars glittered distant and unreachable, and just within reach the colonies hung in orbit around their adopted sun. And between these, the earth--a brilliant disc of spinning azure and ivory wisps, too ancient to concern itself with the threat its children posed.

It had been spinning there for such a long time. Long before humanity had crawled from the sludge and pulled itself upright, the young earth had lived. It had watched as they grew, as they spread, as they reached their fragile fingers toward the stars, and now it shed its sparkler dims on other grounds, filtering through the tiny spaceship window to illuminate Heero's pale skin in faint soft blue.

Duo's fingers trailed through that light, drawing soft moans from his lover and capturing them in his mouth. Heero clutched him close, joining their bodies with an urgent thrust with more of desperation than desire in it, losing himself in an epiphany of kisses.

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Ad ascoltareAs we look out of our windows  
il cielo alla finestraand listen to the sky  
questo mondo cheand to a world  
si sveglia e la notte e'that's awakening  
gia cosi lontanaand the night is already far away  
gia lontanaalready far away

Relena pushed open the shuttered windows, drenching her face in the moonlight, the cool night breeze tickling her face. Far above her, the colonies sparkled merrily like foreign stars, and the moon shone luminous and innocent from her perch in the heavens.

It looked so far away...and yet, it wasn't. People she cared for were scattered among those glimmering specks. They were fighting there...and dying...

"Heero." The whisper was lost on the wind, but it had sounded hollow in her own ears. Hiding behind her admiration for him no longer protected her from the sorrow that sought to envelope her.

"Father." His was the face he hid from, even as she strove to honour his memory, to earn his pride. For a short time, Heero had sheltered her from the sorrow of his loss. That time was gone.

And Heero as well was gone, and Relena could not afford to be a child. A final face in her mind's eye, a final name whispered to the unheeding breeze--"Milliardo."

Her chin dropped into folded hands, propped on the windowsill as she gazed into the garden. "I'll make it all come out somehow," she promised softly. "I don't know how yet, but I will. I have to...."

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Guarda questa terra cheLook at this world  
Che gira insieme a noiturning around, with us  
anche quando e' buioeven in the dark  
Guardo questa terra cheLook at this world  
che gira anche per noiturning around, for us  
A darci un po' di sole, sole, solegiving us hope and some sun, sun, sun

The sun would not be up for hours, but the faint red glow of false dawn was already painting the sky at the farthest edge of the sea. Trowa disentwined himself from a labyrinth of twisted blankets and Quatre's limbs and stole gracefully to the window, fingers pressed against the clouded glass.

"You were warm," Quatre pouted, and Trowa turned, a smile playing at the corners of his lips as his eyes lingered on the tangle of boy and blankets on the bed before him.

"I didn't know you were awake."

Quatre shrugged one graceful pinkened shoulder, before tugging the duvet up to his chin. "You moved." Adjusting himself inside his nest, he finally found a comfortable position, burrowed into the blankets with barely more than his eyes and a tuft of blonde hair visible to Trowa's disappointed gaze. "What are you thinking?"

Trowa tilted his head, considering, abandoning thoughts of war and chaos for the more tranquil image of his tousled love. "That you're adorable."

Quatre wrinkled his nose indignantly. "I am not. I'm ferocious and deadly," he declared grandly.

Trowa conceded with a turn of his hand. "Maybe so, but at the moment you look sweet."

"Hmph." Quatre shed the blankets, the faintest spread of goosebumps covering his bare skin as he padded over to join Trowa at the window. Coyness abandoned, he slipped his arms around his lover's waist, rested his cheek against the taller boy's smooth back. "What were you really thinking?"

"Just reminding myself," Trowa answered, his fingers slipping over Quatre's, his face upturned to the crimson sky outside. "Remembering what it is I'm fighting for when we leave here in the morning...that all the nights we give up will be worth it in the end."

Quatre nodded silent understanding into Trowa's skin, for a long moment doing nothing more than holding him, savouring the touch of the firm body pressed against his own. 

Finally--"I am glad you are lonely here with me, Trowa," he whispered.

Outside, the sky was darkening again.

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My love che sei l'amore mioMy love, whoever you are, my love  
Sento la tua voce e ascolto il mareI hear your voice, yet I listen to the sea  
Sembra davvero il tuo respiroIt sounds just like your breathing  
L'amore che mi daiAnd all the love you want to give me

Tranquility.

Wufei sat in silence, folded into lotus on the sandy shore of an unfamiliar sea. Starlight illuminated the tips of the waves, drifted in the rhythm of the waves that crept steadily up the shore to tickle his knees. It was the ideal spot for meditation; Wufei could ask for no better.

But the sea sounded like a heartbeat.

He tried not to think about her--to ignore the memory of those determined blue eyes, the tension in her body, the set of her chin against the forces so certain to overwhelm her own. We are weak, she said, and that is why we fight--it was the desperation of the downtrodden, the tenacity of the betrayed, the bond of a woman intent on trying, however futilely, to save the world. And though Wufei did his best to forget her, the soft pounding of the sea flooded him with the wistful image of a heartbeat--hers, in time with his own, rhythmic and soft and endless.

It was both disturbing and a relief to realise he was still human after all.

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Questo amore che sta li nascostoThis love that is there, hidden  
in mezzo alle sue ondohidden among the waves  
a tutte le sue ondeall the waves in the world  
come una barce chejust like a boat that....

Sally watched the moon rise over the trees, thankful for the cloak of darkness that hid her and her men from enemy eyes. It looked so peaceful, from a distance, and so ancient--how different it could be up close, where factories turned out the mobile dolls that terrorised frightened colonies into submission.

Suddenly she felt very, very small indeed.

"Thinkin' about that kid?" a familiar voice asked, and she turned to offer her lieutenant a wistful smile. "He got away fine," the man continued, reassuring. "Saved our sorry asses, that's for sure. Glad you managed to talk some sense into him, Sally. You got a way with people."

Without waiting for a response, he slapped her companionably on the shoulder and disappeared into the forest again.

Sally turned her gaze to the sky again.

Is the whole world going insane? What was she doing, thinking about a smooth body and a pair of dark eyes at a time when all her concentration was needed for battle tactics? Why, in the middle of a war that had turned the world upside-down, could she not wait for a chance to fall asleep and dream of him?

"Wufei," she whispered into the trees. "Be careful, wherever you are."

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Guarda questa terra cheLook at this world  
Che gira insieme a noiturning around, with us  
anche quando e' buioeven in the dark  
Guardo questa terra cheLook at this world  
che gira anche per noiturning around, for us  
A darci un po' di sole, sole, solegiving us hope and some sun, sun, sun

A stolen kiss, and nothing more--a hasty exchange in an alcove that could at any moment be discovered, a whispered promise of satisfaction later--their lips met, fingers twined however briefly in soft hair, eyes and hearts burned with desire that must be contained.

Tears sprung unbidden to Lucrezia Noin's blue eyes, she blinked them fiercely away. One slender finger caressed her cheek as Zechs brushed them away. 

"Don't cry, Lu," he whispered.

"I'm not," she said softly.

He touched his lips to her forehead, his fingers reveling in the softness of her skin as he stroked her face once more. "I know you're not," he conceded, wishing for all the world that tears were no more necessary than discretion.

She smiled weakly, cupping his cheek, turning her face up to his own. "I love you, you know."

A fleeting smile of his own. "I don't deserve it, you know," he responded, nevertheless clutching her close, as if by melding her to him he might never have to let her go. "When this is over...." he whispered into her hair.

Footsteps too close to their sanctuary interrupted them, and their sigh echoed through worlds. "When this is over," Lucrezia repeated, straightening her shoulders, becoming once more an officer and leader of men.

Soon, it would be over...wouldn't it...?

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Guarda questa terra cheLook at this world  
che gira insieme a noiturning around with us  
A darci un po' di solegiving us hope, and some sun

The sun rose and set, the moon in concert with it, as they had done since time immeasurable, shedding their light equally on all--those who slept, who danced, who fought, who prayed. The earth spun as it ever had, kept its steady course around the sun, as the conflicts of men played out on and around it.

Relena curled in her bed, burrowed into her blankets, her hair splayed out on the pillow, dreaming of peace and dancing with her father at a birthday celebration.

Wufei sprawled on the beach, shifting, unable to fall asleep, blinking as he realised he'd scratched Sally's name into the sand.

Quatre and Trowa watched the sun rise over the sea, and shared a last tender kiss as they returned to the fight.

Sally whispered a quiet prayer for salvation as she watched the shadows of mobile suit patrols block the moon from view.

Zechs Merquise and Lucrezia Noin passed each other in the hallway, their fingers touching ever-so-briefly, a glance saying more than words ever could.

Heero drifted to sleep in Duo's arms, his head pillowed in a mass of chestnut hair, his heart for a while at peace as the only person to ever really understand held him close in a protective embrace. Duo trailed a soft line of kisses down Heero's sweat-dampened forehead, taking refuge in their stolen moment.

"Someday," he murmured into the hair of his dozing love, a promise and protestation of faith in one.

Someday....

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Guarda questa terra cheLook at this world  
che gira insieme a noiturning around with us  
A darci un po' di solegiving us hope, and some sun  
Mighty sunMighty sun  
Mighty sunMighty sun  
Mighty sunMighty sun

~Owari~


End file.
